A collection of science fiction classics edited and introduced by the winner of fifteen Hugo awards for best editor, Gardner Dozois.

From the introduction:

Here is life on another world, in another place, another time. Here is what it is like to wear an alien skin. Here are new concepts, new vistas, magic. . . "Why read science fiction?" It's alive in a world of dead art, dead minds, dead institutions; it's a bright-eyed, irreverent little animal scurrying through a petrified landscape of old dead trees; it's unashamedly potent and prolific in a world that grows increasingly weary and sterile; it dares to raise its voice in boisterous joy, sorrow, and anger in a place full of sour silence and dead echoes.

Contains these legendary tales: "The Oldest Soldier" by Fritz Leiber, "After the Myths Went Home," by Robert Silverberg, "The Stars Below," by Ursula K. Le Guin, "Straw," by Gene Wolfe, "On the Gem Planet," by Cordwainer Smith, "Beam Us Home" by James Tiptree, Jr.,"The Barbarian," by Joanna Russ, "Among the Hairy Earthmen," by R. A. Lafferty, "Man in the Jar," by Damon Knight, "Old Hundredth," by Brian W. Aldiss, and "The Signaller," by Keith Roberts.

"A fine idea for an anthology – 'adventures in otherness' is really what SF is all about, isn't it? – and the stories . . . are a very neat mixture of themes and literary methods, and of course a bunch of very fine examples of first-class narrative prose . . .an artful and elegant group, intelligently chosen."—Robert Silverberg

Science Fiction Hall of Fame Inductee Gardner Dozois is the winner of two Nebula awards for fiction. Dozois was also the long-time editor of Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, a position for which he won fifteen Hugo awards. He remains editor of the annual Year's Best Science Fiction anthologies.